Crime and Culpability: A Theory of Criminal Law

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Series Title......Page 5
Title......Page 7
Copyright......Page 8
Contents......Page 11
Acknowledgments......Page 15
PART ONE Introduction: Retributivism and the Criminal Law......Page 17
CHAPTER I Criminal Law, Punishment, and Desert......Page 19
I. The Criminal Law and Preventing Harm......Page 20
A. WEAK, MODERATE, OR STRONG RETRIBUTIVISM?......Page 23
B. MEASURING DESERT......Page 26
C. THE STRENGTH OF THE RETRIBUTIVIST SIDE CONSTRAINT......Page 28
D. THE FREEWILL-DETERMINISM DEBATE......Page 29
E. CHOICE OR CHARACTER?......Page 32
III. Conclusion......Page 33
PART TWO The Culpable Choice......Page 37
CHAPTER II The Essence of Culpability: Acts Manifesting Insufficient Concern for the Legally Protected Interests of Others......Page 39
I. Unpacking Recklessness......Page 41
II. Folding Knowledge and Purpose into Recklessness......Page 47
A. KNOWLEDGE......Page 48
B. PURPOSE......Page 51
A. UNDERSTANDING INSUFFICIENT CONCERN......Page 57
1. How Many Categories Do We Need?......Page 58
2. Indifference Compared......Page 59
3. Bizarre Metaphysical Beliefs and Culpability......Page 61
1. The Holism of Risk Assessment......Page 62
2. Opaque Recklessness......Page 67
3. Genetic Recklessness......Page 74
C. REASONS AND JUSTIFICATION......Page 75
D. SINCERE, UNREASONABLE, AND RECKLESS BELIEFS AND THE CULPABILITY DETERMINATION......Page 79
E. RECKLESSNESS AND ACT AGGREGATION......Page 80
IV. Proxy Crimes......Page 82
CHAPTER III Negligence......Page 85
I. Why Negligence Is Not Culpable......Page 86
A. SIMONS’S CULPABLE INDIFFERENCE......Page 87
B. TADROS’S CHARACTER APPROACH......Page 90
C. GARVEY’S DOXASTIC SELF-CONTROL THEORY......Page 91
III. The Strongest Counterexample to Our Position......Page 93
IV. The Arbitrariness of the Reasonable-Person Test......Page 97
CHAPTER IV Defeaters of Culpability......Page 102
I. Justifications and Excuses: Reorienting the Debate......Page 104
A. EVISCERATING THE OFFENSE-DEFENSE DISTINCTION......Page 107
B. ELIMINATING THE WRONGDOING-CULPABILITY DISTINCTION......Page 108
A. IN GENERAL: THE LESSER-EVILS PARADIGM......Page 109
1. The General Consequentialist Structure of Lesser-Evil Choices......Page 110
2. Deontological Constraints on the Consequentialist Calculus......Page 112
3. Second- and Third-Party Implications......Page 119
4. The Special Case of Lesser versus Least Evil......Page 120
B. SELF-DEFENSE, CULPABLE AGGRESSORS, AND OTHER CULPABLE ACTORS......Page 124
1. Rights-Based Justifications......Page 125
2. Third-Party Focus......Page 126
3. Justified Responses to Culpable Aggressors......Page 128
4. The Risk That a Possible Culpable Aggressor Is Not One......Page 139
6. The Provoked Culpable Aggressor......Page 142
7. The Range of Culpable Actors......Page 144
C. SOCIALLY JUSTIFYING REASONS: SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS......Page 149
III. Excuses......Page 150
A. PERSONAL JUSTIFICATIONS AND HARD CHOICES......Page 151
1. Personal Justifications......Page 152
2. Expanding Duress......Page 157
3. Duress, Preemptive Action, and Proportionality......Page 160
4. Implications......Page 161
5. A Possible Extension? Preemptive Collective Protection and Preventive Detention......Page 166
B. EXCULPATORY MISTAKES......Page 167
1. Excuses versus Exemptions......Page 171
2. Insanity......Page 172
3. Degraded Decision-Making Conditions......Page 174
A. THE PERPLEXING PARTIAL EXCUSE OF PROVOCATION......Page 178
1. Provocation as Justification......Page 179
3. Provocation as Excuse (2): The Decision-Making Explanation......Page 180
B. ASSIMILATING PROVOCATION......Page 182
C. HOW MITIGATION WORKS......Page 184
PART THREE The Culpable Act......Page 185
CHAPTER V Only Culpability, Not Resulting Harm, Affects Desert......Page 187
I. The Irrelevance of Results......Page 188
II. The Intuitive Appeal of the “Results Matter” Claim......Page 191
A. IF NEGATIVE RESULTS INCREASE BLAMEWORTHINESS, DO POSITIVE RESULTS DECREASE BLAMEWORTHINESS?......Page 194
B. CAUSAL CONUNDRUMS......Page 196
IV. Free Will and Determinism Reprised......Page 204
V. The Immateriality of Results and Ancestral Culpable Acts......Page 207
VI. The Immateriality of Results and Inchoate Crimes......Page 208
VII. Inculpatory Mistakes and the Puzzle of Legally Impossible Attempts......Page 210
CHAPTER VI When Are Inchoate Crimes Culpable and Why?......Page 213
A. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS......Page 214
B. INTENTIONS......Page 215
1. Are Intentions Acts?......Page 216
2. Why Intentions Are Not Culpable Acts......Page 217
C. SUBSTANTIAL STEPS......Page 226
D. DANGEROUS PROXIMITY......Page 230
E. LAST ACTS......Page 232
A. WHEN PREPARATORY ACTS ARE ALSO LAST ACTS......Page 233
B. LIT-FUSE ATTEMPTS......Page 236
C. IMPOSSIBLE ATTEMPTS......Page 237
D. RECONCEPTUALIZING OTHER INCHOATE CRIMES......Page 239
CHAPTER VII The Locus of Culpability......Page 242
A. RETHINKING CULPABLE ACTION......Page 244
B. FROM VOLITIONS TO WILLED BODILY MOVEMENTS......Page 247
A. BACKGROUND: THE “NO CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR OMISSIONS” REGIME AND EXCEPTIONS THERETO......Page 250
B. ELEMENTS OF OMISSIONS LIABILITY......Page 253
C. THE CRIME OF POSSESSION......Page 255
A. RISKY ACTS AND FAILURES TO RESCUE......Page 257
B. CULPABILITY AND DURATION......Page 258
IV. Individuating Crimes......Page 260
1. A Brief Normative Defense......Page 261
2. Disentangling Legally Protected Interests......Page 262
1. Counting Willed Bodily Movements......Page 266
2. Volume Discounts......Page 270
3. Analyzing Continuous Courses of Conduct......Page 273
PART FOUR A Proposed Code......Page 277
CHAPTER VIII What a Culpability-Based Criminal Code Might Look Like......Page 279
A. LEGALLY PROTECTED INTERESTS......Page 280
1. A Normative Defense of Unpacking Crimes......Page 281
2. Which Interests?......Page 285
1. Some Preliminaries......Page 293
2. A First Attempt......Page 294
II. From an Idealized Code to a Practical One: Implementing Our Theory in “the Real World”......Page 304
1. Three Significant Problems with the Current State of Criminal Law......Page 305
2. Do Our Current Criminal Codes Contain Rules?......Page 308
2. The Argument for Rules over Standards......Page 311
3. Problems with Rules......Page 313
4. An Empirical Experiment......Page 318
1. Recognizing the Alternatives......Page 322
2. Enacting Proxy Crimes......Page 325
D. LEGALITY QUESTIONS......Page 329
1. Notice......Page 330
2. Constraining Power......Page 331
1. Do We Unjustly Empower Prosecutors?......Page 333
2. Reconciling Our Act Requirement with Concerns about Law Enforcement......Page 334
F. PROCEDURAL, EVIDENTIARY, AND SENTENCING CONSIDERATIONS......Page 337
1. Burdens of Proof and Evidentiary Rules......Page 338
3. Sentencing Considerations......Page 339
Epilogue......Page 341
General instructions:......Page 343
Defense of self and others:......Page 344
In making this determination, I advise you that......Page 345
Primary Materials......Page 347
Secondary Materials......Page 350
Index......Page 365